by Tai Baiyang
The other evolvers just thought that Gu Lin was scared out of his wits and didn’t care about him. They listened to the man with a nose-ring and split up, surrounding Zhang Mu from all directions.
Zhang Mu never stopped their actions at all. He never planned to use the power of the Bloodvine Lotus this time. He just viewed these people as the testing subject for his Obsidian Beetle dagger.
Once most of the people were ready, Zhang Mu kicked his right leg on the ground and rushed towards the man with the nose-ring. Although he didn’t plan to use the Bloodvine Lotus, he was not going to remind them stupidly too.
As expected, when Zhang Mu rushed over. The man with the nose-ring got nervous and grabbed his machete tightly. His eyes turned to look on the ground and he shouted, “be aware of the movement on the ground. Be careful of where the vines will come out.”
Zhang Mu appeared in front of the bunch of people in a blink of an eye. However, to their surprise, no vines popped out from the ground. They were very confused.
Someone observant noticed that the dagger in Zhang Mu’s hand was different from the claw just now. However, he didn’t think much about it. He just thought that Zhang Mu changed his weapon.
Zhang Mu jumped high up. The man in nose-ring knew that he would aim at him first and knew that he had to take on his attack. However, he still glanced at his surroundings and prepared to retreat once things go wrong.
“If you lose your focus in a fight, you are looking for death.”
Zhang Mu’s indifferent voice came from the air. The next second, his Obsidian Beetle dagger struck forcefully on the man’s machete. To everyone’s surprise, the powerful looking machete got cut like a piece of tofu by the small and exquisite dagger.
The attacks didn’t subside. The dagger followed the movement of gravity and continued moving down, cutting the man into half just like that.
The man with nose-ring only realized just before his death that Zhang Mu had no intentions to use his vines. Yet, he put most of his attention on the vines.
However, even if he didn’t divert his attention, he would never expect his machete to be so useless in front of Zhang Mu’s new Obsidian Beetle dagger.
He might be able to exchange some moves with Zhang Mu but in the end, he would still die.
When the other evolvers saw the man with nose-ring died, they gave up trying to retaliate. They rushed towards the exit in a flurry.
Zhang Mu stroked his dagger and looked at the people running away. He licked his dry lips and said slowly, “the show is only just starting!”
Chapter 112: The Power of Obsidian Beetle
Just when the first person who running away almost reached the gate, Zhang Mu moved his body. He kicked his red leg on the floor and his whole body shot out like a cannon.
He twirled the Obsidian Beetle dagger continuously in his hand. The cannibals ran with all their strength but they were still unable to throw Zhang Mu off.
Zhang Mu didn’t say much. They chose their own path so there was no way he would give them another chance. If they wanted to die in a more dignified manner, Zhang Mu could still satisfy them, as long as they picked up their weapon and not surrendered without giving any resistance.
However, this bunch of people was frightened out of their wits by Zhang Mu. They didn’t have any intention of resisting against him at all and just wanted to leave this place. These people had lost their value in Zhang Mu’s eyes and he even wondered if it was too humiliating to make them the first few victims of his Obsidian Beetle dagger.
Zhang Mu looked at them as though they were a pile of rotten meat. His eyes were filled with contempt.
If that is the case, I don’t have to leave any pride for you all.
He grabbed his Obsidian Beetle dagger and faced it upwards. He injected some of his energy into the dagger and accelerated his speed to the maximum. He slashed forward forcefully.
As the wind roared loudly, the Obsidian Beetle dagger slashed through the air and flames spurted out of his dagger. At the start, only a little bit of flame appeared at the tip of the dagger but with the wind’s help, the flame got bigger and by the time he reached the bunch of people who closest to him, there was already a huge ball of flame on his dagger.
Under Zhang Mu’s control, the flame left the Obsidian Beetle dagger and became a fire tornado which kept growing bigger. It sucked up the few people that were in front of him.
The fire tornado didn’t stop there. It kept rushing forward.
All the cannibals in its path were engulfed by it. They only had the time to give a painful scream because the temperature of the fire tornado was really high so it melted them the instant they came into contact with it. Their throat got melted too.
Zhang Mu felt that the air was very hot, he couldn’t breathe properly too. He quickly moved away from the fire tornado and killed those people that didn’t get sucked up. One dagger one life. After he finished, he stood at one side and watched silently.
He didn’t expect the flame to be different from the elements that were present of the Earth. Indeed, this is the power of the other stars, It was worth the high price he paid for it.
Zhang Mu knew that if it was flame from Earth, a human could still struggle for a while even if the fire was so huge. However, the flame that came from the dagger was not so simple. Zhang Mu noticed that once these people came into contact with the flame, they would become part of the flame and even acted as the fuel for it to continue burning.
He lowered his head and looked at the Obsidian Beetle dagger in his hand. He felt it. Although this hot flame came out from the dagger a moment ago, it was still abnormally cold. There was no heat from it at all. It formed a stark contrast with the warmth in the air.
The flame disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
Once there were no more humans to feed it, the flame stopped spinning and slowly shrunk. The places that the fire tornado landed on had turned pitch black and those cannibals were just a pile of dust now. A small gust of wind blew and they disappeared, floating in the air.
From the moment they chose to step on this path, they should have thought of such an ending.
Since the dead couldn’t come back alive, you all will atone for your sins.
Zhang Mu looked at the dust in the air and sighed with emotion. Actually, he had a part to play in this. Zhang Mu had guessed why Zero appeared. The place that Zero was at had fallen in his past life because of the invasion of the walking dead. This was why Zhang Mu didn’t remember him at all. Also, he was certain that such a person never existed in his past life.
Then that meant that his existence was due to his rebirth.
Due to some of his actions, such as wiping out certain walking deads, some people in the area who were supposed to die in the invasion survived.
Hence, Zero awakened his psychological abilities and the cannibals appeared.
Zero lived because of him and he almost died because of Zero. Everything was back at its starting point. There were no more cannibals, at least, for now.
Zhang Mu wondered if he could resolve the other things that had changed because of him. This time, he was just really lucky.
A gust of cold wind blew past him. He shivered. He stopped thinking about it. He didn’t even know if the things he caused were good or bad so why talked about resolving them now?
He slowly walked back to where he came from. In this entire North city survival base, only Gu Lin was left. He shrunk beside the big pot and didn’t want to raise his head.
He only looked up when he heard Zhang Mu’s footsteps. He said to Zhang Mu, “In the end, you killed them all. I am the only one left, right?”
For some reason, Zhang Mu felt that Gu Lin’s eyes were different from the rest of the cannibals. However, this would not make him forgive Gu Lin. But, he still responded to him.
Gu Lin laughed bitterly. He looked at Zhang Mu and said, “since I am the only one left, make it a quick one. If you can, can you leave a full corpse for me? In my
hometown, we have a tradition. When we die, we need to have a full corpse. If not, we will go to hell.”
However, he suddenly thought of something and shook his head. He continued, “forget it, I probably will go to hell anyway. There is no point in having a full corpse.”
Zhang Mu looked at him with mixed emotions. He said, “okay.”
When he heard Zhang Mu’s reply, Gu Lin’s eyes lit up slightly. He thought that Zhang Mu would use the dagger to kill him.
He took out a key from his pocket and held it in front of Zhang Mu. “The secret room where we breed normal humans is beside the underground meeting room of this unfinished building. It is hidden well and there is a huge vase blocking it. This is the key.”
A man's words are kind when the death is close.
After he finished speaking, Zhang Mu saw Gu Lin closing his eyes. When Gu Lin took out the key, he slit his throat lightly with the Obsidian Beetle dagger. A wound formed and blood flowed out profusely.
Gu Lin opened his eyes with some difficulty. He didn’t seem to feel the pain and was even taking his last look at the world.
Zhang Mu understood the emotion in Gu Lin’s eyes. He finally understood why he felt his eyes were different from the rest of the cannibals.
It was regret!
He heard the sighed that this spirit gave as it was about to leave the world.
“I want to stay alive too but I know.”
“I know that I can’t quit anymore.”
Chapter 113: How Weak Humanity Was
When Zhang Mu noticed Gu Lin’s emotions, his heart started to waver. However, he got rid of this thought very quickly. He knew that this was not just emotion for him, it had turned into a physiological instinct for him. Zhang Mu did not believe that he could change. Even he didn’t believe it himself.
Zhang Mu seemed to understand why Gu Lin was the only one who still had some conscience even though he was the most arrogant among all the cannibals. He was just trying to hide the fear and guilt in his heart.
Zhang Mu heard Zero saying that he had already given Gu Lin a chance already. Now that he thought about it, he must have tried to rebel once but failed. He was on the brink of sinking in and completely sinking in so he struggled and that was why he tried to resist against Zero’s control.
However, Zhang Mu couldn’t do anything too. Once you betrayed the human race, there was no turning back. This was a path of no return. This conclusion was formed in the future after some experiments in the survival bases.
Some of the survival bases leaders saw the potential on the cannibals and tried to lock up those cannibals that were forced, hoping that they would change. After all, most of the cannibals used to be evolvers with very powerful abilities.
They thought that if they could subdue these cannibals and used their powers appropriately, their survival base would become more powerful. Thus, they tried to change them using with this thought in mind.
However, things didn’t happen as they want it too. At the start, these cannibals acted like a normal human being. They could eat normally and talk normally. They even made friends with the people who were guarding them. But, after some time, they started to reveal their real self.
They couldn’t eat anything and their temper got worse. When they looked at the guard, they wanted to attack him.
They only wanted to eat human meat now!
The person guarding them would never give it to them so they actually started attacking each other because they wanted to eat the meat on each other’s body. No matter what the consequences were, they just wanted to eat human meat.
When the survival base saw this, they used a lot of effort and kept them apart in the individual rooms.
There were no living objects within the sight of the cannibals so they started attacking the bed and the cages. They attacked anything they could see. If these cages were not enhanced by evolvers with special abilities, these powerful and crazy cannibals might have escaped.
The leaders still had hope that this was just a process of recovering from the addiction but after some time, they didn’t think like this anymore.
Why? Because these cannibals didn’t eat the food they prepared. They smashed the plates and didn’t touch the pork or lamb meat or beef that was given to them. An eerie thing happened after that.
They started eating the meat on their own body!
No one could forget how they tore the meat off their elbows and thighs and stuffed them into their mouths with glistening eyes. They would never forget this scene for life.
The cannibals lost too much blood and couldn’t move anymore. They were covered with wounds and you could even see their bones. Their powers were slowly degrading too. The leaders finally lost their interest in them.
If they lost their abilities, what was their use? Why not just show them to the furious crowd and let them be an avenue for venting their anger?
After a few days past, they stopped breathing so they sent people in to collect their corpse. The guard opened the cages and wanted to move these corpse away. However, he found something frightening.
Their tongue was all gone!
In order to satisfy their psychological instinct even when they had no energy and couldn’t move, they bit their tongue and swallowed it. They did all of these just because they couldn’t break away from the temptation.
From then onwards, all the survival bases agreed on the execution of cannibals. Once any cannibals were found, they would be killed on the spot.
After recalling the pieces of evidence from the survival bases, Zhang Mu no longer looked at Gu Lin with any emotions. Zhang Mu believed that in that second, he really wanted to change but even he himself didn’t believe that he could do it. Hence, he asked Zhang Mu to kill him.
Zhang Mu thought for a while and summoned the Bloodvine Lotus. He made a huge hole and buried all the big pots as well as Gu Lin inside the hole. Then, the vines moved and soil flew in the air. The hole was filled up again and Gu Lin got buried.
His hometown tradition was to keep a full corpse. If he was left outside, he might be eaten by mutated beast. Zhang Mu thought that since he promised him, he should do his best to fulfill his promise.
This might be the last shred of dignity Zhang Mu gave to this cannibal who still had some conscience.
He summoned the Bloodvine Lotus back and walked towards the unfinished building with the key.
The unfinished building was eerily quiet but Zhang Mu knew that the normal humans Zero bred were just underneath him.
He walked down the steps into the basement and passed by a dimly lit path. Very soon, he found the meeting room that Gu Lin mentioned.
He walked in and looked around. He saw the big flower pot. He rushed forward and kicked it into pieces. He saw a small black hole behind the flower vase. Gu Lin didn’t lie to him.
This place was really a good hiding spot. The edges of the door blended well with the surroundings. If Gu Lin didn’t say it, Zhang Mu would not have found this place.
When he inserted the key and unlocked the door. He frowned. The smell was too disgusting.
Everything was in a mess. There were people all around the room, lying or sitting down. Most of them were really in disarrayed and some didn’t even have clothes on them.
Human waste and signs of urine surrounded these people but they had no reaction at all. It was as if they couldn’t see it.
Even when Zhang Mu came in, there was no reaction from these people at all. They seemed to be used to the fact that a few people would be taken away every day. They knew what happened to these people. They also knew that they could not escape. It was just a question about when they would be eaten.
When he saw these numbed people, Zhang Mu felt despair. Have they got used to being treated like food?
Chapter 114: Hopeless
Zhang Mu wanted to say something but he saw something out of place. In a corner of this big room, not everyone was in a daze and numb.
A group of naked men enc
ircled in a corner. They were shaking their body. Zhang Mu’s heart dropped. He had seen too many things in the future so he knew what was happening.
He stepped on the wastes on the floor and strode over in big steps. He didn’t hide his foot steps. The group of men turned around slowly and looked at Zhang Mu nonchalantly.
When they saw the attire on the man behind them, they instantly thought that Zhang Mu was part of the cannibals. One of them got really frightened and said, “Mister, you look unfamiliar.”
Zhang Mu didn’t want to talk to these people at all. He slowly raised his Obsidian Beetle dagger. The naked men saw Zhang Mu’s action and opened a path for him.
Zhang Mu saw the person who was being bullied by these scumbags. It was the little girl that he saw before.
The little girl that got brought out by the short and skinny cannibal. At this moment, her eyes were filled with humiliation as she laid in this dirty place, dead. There was nothing on her.
Her eyes were opened widely. They seemed to be questioning Zhang Mu, why? Why didn’t you come and save me?
Zhang Mu steel heart ached. This little girl’s eyes kept questioning him.
He kept quiet. The man that spoke just now thought that Zhang Mu wanted to eat this girl and felt unhappy that they killed her. They hurriedly explained to Zhang Mu in a fearful tone, “Mister, you can’t blame us. Another Mister told us that they were not eating today and passing the little girl to us. He asked us to settle her ourselves. If that Mister didn’t say anything, we will not dare to do it.”
was that what happened? Because of his appearance, he disrupted the cannibal's mood to eat. Hence, this little girl didn’t die outside but died in the hands of her own people?
Zhang Mu found it a little funny. These scumbags just didn’t have the opportunity to become cannibals, right? If Zero was willing to accept them, they would have happily went over. However, their abilities were too weak and that was why they could only become food.